Coming Up Fast

     We leave for china in 18 days! I cannot believe we are actually going! It's crazy to think that our trip is so close.
     While we are in china we will most likely have internet, but we are not guaranteed that we will be able to go on social media. We don't know if we will be able to get on Facebook, Blogger, Instagram, etc. If we are able to, we will definitely be posting a lot. If not we will post during the week after our trip and the days after that.
     We also have received a ton of items that we can bring to the orphanage and donate. The team just got and email from the orphanage and they are in need of baby formula so any little bit will help. We have 36 people each bringing a suitcase full of the supplies we have collected, and each suitcase can be up to 50 pounds.
     When we are at the orphanage we have gotten permission to take the kids off campus. This is an awesome experience because permission to do that is not given very often. What we are wanting to do is take the kids to the zoo for the day and take them out to lunch (probably McDonalds). The cost for about 60 people to do this is about $2400 (part of this money also goes to scrapbooks for an english camp). We are raising money for this and have about $1500 of the $2400, we are getting donations from friends and family, and at school we have a water jug in my teacher's (Mr. Allen) classroom to also collect donations.
     Amia, her mom, my mom, and I are also in charge of making books for an english camp we will be doing (This is what part of the $2400 will be going to). The english camp we will be doing will be for a whole day, the kids will be around 8-10 years old. Each person going on this trip will be paired with 2 kids and will be making books with them to help them learn some basic english. The books are 6x6 and we will be bringing 6 pictures ( 2 sets of 3 pictures) that we can use in the book to help teach them english. This will be a really neat experience because we will get to also learn Chinese while teaching them english.
     Just recently we also got word that out passports have come back safely. No problems whatsoever so we are right on track for being ready to leave to china on march 30th. Our visas are good to go and we will soon be lifting of and headed for china.
     I am so excited to have this experience of a lifetime, and experience it with my mom. We are concerned about a few things, such as the language barrier and my mom's allergies, asthma and pollution, and personally I am worried about flying over the ocean but it's kind of a ridiculous fear. I am so exited to go on this trip and see a different culture and experience so many new things.